Horn of Africa Crisis: 2011-2012

Glide: DR-2011-000029-KEN

Overview

The Horn of Africa crisis of 2011-2012 affected 13 million people. The main focus of the crisis was across southern Ethiopia, south-central Somalia and northern Kenya. Regional drought came on top of successive bad rains and rising inflation. It ramped up a chronic livelihoods crisis into a tipping point of potential disaster by putting extreme pressure on food prices, livestock survival, and water and food availability. Armed conflict across the region compounded chronic ecological and economic vulnerability, which escalated the crisis and limited people’s survival and recovery choices. (IASC Real-Time Evaluation of the Humanitarian Response to the Horn of Africa Drought Crisis in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya - Synthesis Report)

This assessment explores local water security in two very different sites in rural Ethiopia – a pastoral district in the eastern Somali region (Shinile), and a somewhat remote agricultural district in the south (Konso). The following questions were addressed using a combination of field research and analysis of available secondary data and literature:

The rising cost of humanitarian response, combined with repeated action and investment in a small number of targeted countries has led to renewed calls to change the way we address recurrent crises. In 2010, the amount of funding for emergency response was the highest on record, at $12.4 billion, and the joint agencies’ Consolidated Appeal Process stood at $11.2 billion (it’s highest figure ever, and double that of 2006) (Kellett and Sweeney, 2011: 63).

There are approximately 20 million pastoralists across Sub-Saharan Africa. Pastoralists - people who depend primarily on livestock or livestock products for income and food- typically graze their animals on communally managed or open-access pastures, and move with them seasonally. Adding in agro-pastoralists-who derive 50 per cent of their income from non-livestock resources-the numbers reaches over 30 million in the Greater Horn of Africa (CAADP Policy Brief No.6, March 2012).

The 2011 humanitarian crises in Somalia and across the Horn of Africa may be a distant memory to those outside the region, but last Friday the Department for International Development (DFID) received its report card for its response to the crisis from its examination board, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI).

Abstract: Concerns have been raised that the United Kingdom is reshaping its development approach in order to put its own security interests ahead of those of the poorest – what has been referred to as a 'securitisation of aid’.

More fundamentally, practical attempts at better integrating development and security have frequently been hampered by simplistic understandings of the relationship. As explored in this Working Paper, this has resulted in a lack of innovative approaches for better securing development outcomes and supporting peace.

The current drought in The East and Horn of Africa is estimated to have affected 13 million people, of which 4.5 million are Kenyans. Lives and livelihoods have been lost. It has also caused extensive debates on how to end drought emergencies. The discussions have hit media headlines and formed agendas of national and international conferences. A few of the issues that have cut across all these discussions are the acknowledgement that:

· While drought is an unavoidable natural phenomenon, it need not and should not lead to famine and other disasters.

Yet again, Kenya is facing impending drought, and the drylands are already bearing the brunt. Around 3 million people are currently affected, and it is likely the situation will get worse over the coming months. Water and pasture is already in short supply – and as livestock get weaker and their market value decreases, pastoralists have less income to buy food. Malnutrition is rising as families skip meals, take on debts to buy food, and weak cattle are unable to produce vital milk. Families are withdrawing children from school as they migrate with their cattle to find water.